"Samsaric happiness is like drinking salt water"

[vajrastorm]

Pabongka Rinpoche 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand' (p.433-434)

"Samsaric happiness is like drinking salt water - no matter how much of it you obtain, it does not satisfy. Suppose a man has but a single coin. He will think, "when will I will get ten coins?" When he gets ten, he then wonders when he will get a hundred. If he ever does, he'll wonder when he will get a thousand. No matter how many he gets, he will not be satisfied.

If you lack contentment, no matter how much wealth or how many possessions you have acquired, you will be no different from a beggar. Once in India, Surata the beggar found a priceless jewel and said he must give it to another beggar. He gave it to King Prasenajit, saying, "O king you lack contentment, and so are the poorest!".

If you are content you may not have any possessions, but you are still rich.

If you are not content, your dissatisfaction is boundless".

 

[Kim Hyun Jae]

From what I can understand from the Lamrim, samsaric happiness is wasteful in that it does not bring us lasting happiness nor would we be able to be liberated from the cyclic existence of being born repeatedly and go through the same sufferings again and again in lives after lives.

Example, samsaric happiness are only temporary. Like being rich, being able to live in a mansion, being popular, famous, well-known are all subject to temporary happiness only. When we have a million dollar, we want to have the next million dollar and more. This desire feeds our desire over and over again taking us away from the right path of the opportunity to be in dharma.

[sandra]

We are living in desire realm, we will never feel satisfy with what we have no matter how much we obtained. The issue here is not how much we obtain but is our unlimited desire. We need to contemplate to eliminate our desire. There is always a cycle we cling on. We work very hard to look for monies to satisfy our desire needs. There is always never ending story. We are very rare to sit down to contemplate are we happy to such chasing? This is common social diseases we are having now in this modern live.

My conclusion is Buddhism teachings is the antitode to our common desire diseases if we understand it, embrace it and practice it.

[Dondrup Shugden]

Everything is impermanence, whatever wealth or good health that you may have gained may not last forever.  Good health will not last as we all die eventually and on death the wealth is also not possible to take along with us. 

The only inheritance that we have and will go on live after live is our Karma.  In the very present life we should enhance the positivities of our karma and that is the only thing that is real.

Therefore samsaric happiness is like drinking salt water, the more you drink the thirstier you get. 

[yontenjamyang]

Pabongka Rinpoche 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand' (p.433-434)

"Samsaric happiness is like drinking salt water - no matter how much of it you obtain, it does not satisfy. Suppose a man has but a single coin. He will think, "when will I will get ten coins?" When he gets ten, he then wonders when he will get a hundred. If he ever does, he'll wonder when he will get a thousand. No matter how many he gets, he will not be satisfied.

If you lack contentment, no matter how much wealth or how many possessions you have acquired, you will be no different from a beggar. Once in India, Surata the beggar found a priceless jewel and said he must give it to another beggar. He gave it to King Prasenajit, saying, "O king you lack contentment, and so are the poorest!".

If you are content you may not have any possessions, but you are still rich.

If you are not content, your dissatisfaction is boundless".

 

The quote above is to illustrate the dissatisfaction of lives/samsara's nature of suffering. It is the first teaching of the Buddha ie the 4 Noble Truth.
But we can take heart in this passage by Pabongka Rinpoche too, that lack of contentment is the true cause of this. This lack of contentment arise from the delusions that is the 3 poision, ie, Ignorance, Attachment and Anger. If we practice the path of the Buddha we can have cessation of this dissatisfaction even in this life; all these can be alleviated immediately if not fully ceased.

[MoMo]

The very underlying nature of samsaric worlds was Dukkha, one which unable to satisfy, one which is difficult to bear. Due to ignorance…springs desirous attachment or greed thinking there is much to gain or it is pleasurable to takes existence in samsaric worlds which is akin to the analogy of drinking salt water: the more one drinks, the more one desiring it and as consequence leads to uncontrolled cyclic existence. How do we put a stop to this? By practicing contentment:  pausing for a moment and reflect upon drawback of samsara and the great difficulty to chance upon this optimum human rebirth with 10 endowments and 8 freedoms.
In the refuge visualization, we are taught to visualize the ground on merits field and our present environment to be the nature of lapis lazuli inlay with gold and it is soft as the palm of one hands! Where can one find such a place except in one’s mind! Hence, we must cultivate the mind that sees our current situation as sufficient and divert our energy and urgency to cultivating of virtues.   

[eyesoftara]

Pabongka Rinpoche 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand' (p.433-434)

"Samsaric happiness is like drinking salt water - no matter how much of it you obtain, it does not satisfy. Suppose a man has but a single coin. He will think, "when will I will get ten coins?" When he gets ten, he then wonders when he will get a hundred. If he ever does, he'll wonder when he will get a thousand. No matter how many he gets, he will not be satisfied.

If you lack contentment, no matter how much wealth or how many possessions you have acquired, you will be no different from a beggar. Once in India, Surata the beggar found a priceless jewel and said he must give it to another beggar. He gave it to King Prasenajit, saying, "O king you lack contentment, and so are the poorest!".

If you are content you may not have any possessions, but you are still rich.

If you are not content, your dissatisfaction is boundless".

Yes the basis of alleviation is contention in this life's possession. However, that is not to say that we do not strive to achieve what is our responsibilities. Contentment is not about giving up physically, but about mental acceptance after doing our best. I do not subscribed to not drinking the "salt water" but its about accepting that the salt water is not satisfactory by nature. But since we are in the see of samsara we need to accept it and strive to leave samsara by the practice of the 3 higher training and the 3 principal aspect.

[rossoneri]

Very true indeed, there will be no contentment in this life of ours. If we have 10,000 naturally we would go for 20,000 and so on. This is not bad behavior as we all have our own responsibilities and karma in samsara. But the dangerous thing is we had developed a habit of possession without even realized it.

So, it is good at times to stop and contemplate and thing about others need and how lucky you are. Be content and develop a habit of giving to others.

[Midakpa]

The bane of being dissatisfied (discontent) is one of the "banes" mentioned by Pabongka Rinpoche in "Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand". These "banes" are the general sufferings of Samsara.  The bane of dissatisfaction is caused by our desire for things that we think will bring us happiness. If we do not recognise its inherent nature, there will be no end to it.  "Samsaric happiness" is in fact suffering in disguise. It gives the illusion of happiness but there is inherent suffering which we do not recognise. So it is important not to be attached to this type of happiness as it will only bring harm to us. The antidote to the suffering of dissatisfaction is contentment. This is true wealth. As Pabongka Rinpoche said, "If you are content you may not have any possessions, but you are still rich." Pabongka Rinpoche quoted Nagarjuna:

"Always be content.
If you know contentment,
Though you have no property
You have the purest wealth." (From "Nagarjuna's Letter")